Written for the LJ community springkink.
Disclaimer: Namine and the others belong very much to themselves (and, they'll admit, Squeenix, but they'd rather cut their ties to Disney.)
Collage
I. In The Beginning
This is one of my first drawings—I remember being proud when my parents said I was old enough to have one of the big boxes with the sharpener in the back. The colored blobs are supposed to be all of my friends back then. You can tell them apart by their hair color, or at least my parents always could. Mom still says they remind her of the way we were as children; always moving, more like colored blurs than people. Except for me—I would sit quietly to draw. Maybe that's why I didn't put myself in the picture.
II. Friends
Here's a drawing from fourth grade, when our teacher asked us to draw a picture of all our friends. It's not much better than the first picture, but at least I'd gotten better at coloring in the lines. There's Tidus and Wakka with their blitzball, Selphie and Kairi holding jumpropes, and Sora, Roxas, and Riku all with their toy swords. Notice that at this age Sora and Roxas still had the same hair color—Sora's didn't darken for years. I actually drew myself in this one, there in the corner, holding a sketchbook.
III. Sister
One of the first things I drew with the colored pencils I bought to entertain myself with on a long road trip my family took the summer after sixth grade. There's Kairi sitting and reading a book—one of those about the girl that decided to be a knight. The others always teased her that she only liked those books because the girl had red hair, like her. We laughed over how silly this lady knight could sometimes be—falling in love didn't seem like such a scary thing. Then we didn't know what it meant to lose a part of yourself—your heart—to another person.
IV. Graduated
Dad took this photo at the party after our Eighth Grade graduation. All of us are there, including Hayner, Pence, and Olette. They'd gone to a different elementary school, but Roxas had become good friends with them, best friends with Hayner. Hayner's the one having a mock duel with Roxas using their diplomas while Sora (hair darkened to brown) and Tidus cheer them on (I'm standing off to the side with the other girls, secretly cheering for Roxas). Riku and Wakka had to get special permission to leave school early, since they'd already started high school, but at least they were there. I remember we were all so happy to be out of middle school, thinking that high school would be fun.
V. Self
A picture of myself that I drew for my portfolio in AP Art. Some of my classmates were more creative (one girl drew a tiger), but I still think this turned out well. It's just me, blond hair (a little longer that it is now) blue eyes, and what was my favorite outfit then. Roxas pointed out once that if you look closely, I look sad even though I'm smiling. Axel jokes that look was probably the result of surviving "high school hell." I don't know if I would say it was that bad, but it wasn't as fun as we'd thought it would be. After all, high school was when I started thinking that maybe Kairi's lady knight hadn't been so silly after all as I watched my friends gain and lose significant others.
VI. Trio
Here's a copy of a picture I drew for Kairi of her, Sora, and Riku after they all got together. It's funny how even before then, they'd become inseparable in my mind—like I'd known how it was going to be. Of course, to a lot of people they'd always been sorarikuandkairi, inseparable since they were children. I remember how uneasy Kairi was, though, until they sorted everything out, and how the way they looked at each other was different than the way they'd looked at any of the other people they'd dated.
VII. All Grown Up
High school graduation was so different from middle school graduation, and I think it shows in this picture. We're not as relaxed without the reassurance that we would all be together in the fall. Wakka isn't there, but Riku is—he took a year off so he could start college with Sora and Kairi. Roxas and I would be going to neighboring schools in the same city, and I remember being relieved that we would at least be that close. At the time I told myself that it was just because I was happy to have someone I knew nearby when I was away from home.
VIII. Roxas
Boyfriend number one, as people who don't know us very well sometimes call him. This is a picture I drew of him in his gi—he's loved martial arts for as long as I can remember. He loves martial arts movies (especially those with Bruce Lee), too, even if he says he only likes movies with an actual plotline. Out of our group growing up, he was the one I was closest to—he complained the least about sitting still so I could draw him, and I know he let me read things he'd written that he never showed to anyone else (except, now, Axel), while he was the first person to see anything new I'd drawn (one of two people, now). I fell in love with him first.
IX. Axel
Boyfriend number two only because I met him later. Don't be fooled by the black clothes, tattoos, and lighter. He plays tough (and can be dangerous when he wants or has to be) but he's actually more easygoing than Roxas about most things. The building he's leaning against is one of our school's theatres—Roxas and I had gone to visit while he was on break during a day-long tech rehearsal when I started this, so I included it. I remember introducing him to Roxas and feeling both happy and sad when they became a couple; happy because they seemed to be and I was glad for them, sad because there was something between them I thought I could never be part of.
X. Us
Here's a picture I drew not too long ago of the three of us, holding each other and smiling. Not that it's always been easy. Axel was the one to figure everything out; all three of us were in love with each other. I remember the awkwardness that came with trying to figure how things worked with more than two people—Kairi got more than one anxious phone call from her younger sister. One thing I learned that I hope the lady knight did: even if you do lose your heart to someone you love, if they love you in return you get it back.